The Juvenile Justice System

The juvenile justice system has many different attributes that make it a more functional and ultimately a more effective system then in the past. Today juveniles are better able to be charged for a crime that they have committed more fairly and justly. The system also calls for a better way of preventing an adult criminal record while providing rehabilitation interventions to help guide our youth from a life of crime and violence.

Today’s system offers the option of prosecuting a juvenile as an adult. This has proven to be both positive and negative in some cases across the U.S. the most recent case that I have had the opportunity to research is the current case in Pennsylvania. A young man named Alex Hribal, 16, entered his Murrysville, Pennsylvania high school, Franklin Regional Senior High School, where he unmercifully stabbed and slashed 22 victims. The victims which included the school resource officer were seriously injured and had to be transported to multiple hospitals shortly after the incident. This incident is sadly not as rare as we would hope. Over the past view years we have seen numerous examples of young people committing crimes in schools from shooting to school bomb threats. Alex Hribal went from being charged as a juvenile to now being prosecuted as an adult, because of the seriousness of his crime that critically injured 22 individual lives.

This process of transferring a juvenile from the juvenile justice system to the adult system is called a “wavier process”. The process is designed to offer an option of trying a juvenile as an adult if there is reason why he/she should be. This process is not just simply a yes or no pit stop process; certain criteria have to be met. For one the accused has been of a certain age, which can vary by state. The accused must have committed an offense that is considered to be abrasive. Also the accused could have record of previous delinquency that justifies a need to transfer him/her or lastly, the accused may have a combination of all three. These criteria have to be met in order to justify why a juvenile should be tried as an adult. In all cases the prosecution bears the burden of proof to ask the court for the transfer. Alex’s case was transferred in the criminal court and sufficient evidence was presented to the judge to accept the motion of him being tried as the adult. Currently the defense attorney is fighting against this motion because he believes that his client was not in a mental state to understand the severity of the crime he